The cloud panorama is evolving at an unprecedented tempo, pushed by the exponential progress of AI workloads.
Enabling the following wave of cloud transformation with Azure Networking
The cloud panorama is evolving at an unprecedented tempo, pushed by the exponential progress of AI workloads and the necessity for seamless, safe, and high-performance connectivity. Azure Community providers stand on the forefront of this transformation, delivering the hyperscale infrastructure, clever providers, and resilient structure that empower organizations to innovate and scale with confidence.
Azure’s international community is purpose-built to satisfy the calls for of recent AI and cloud functions. With over 60 AI areas, 500,000+ miles of fiber, and greater than 4 petabits per second (Pbps) of WAN capability, Azure’s spine is engineered for enormous scale and reliability. The community has tripled its general capability because the finish of FY24, now reaching 18 Pbps, making certain that clients can run probably the most demanding AI and knowledge workloads with uncompromising efficiency.
On this weblog, I’m excited to share about our developments in knowledge middle networking that gives the core infrastructure to run AI coaching fashions at huge scale, in addition to our newest product bulletins to strengthen the resilience, safety, scale, and the capabilities wanted to run cloud native workloads for optimized efficiency and price.
AI on the coronary heart of the cloud
AI is not only a workload—it’s the engine driving the following technology of cloud methods. Azure’s community material is optimized for AI at each layer, supporting long-lasting, high-bandwidth flows for mannequin coaching, low-latency intra-datacenter materials for GPU clusters, and safe, lossless visitors administration. Azure’s structure integrates InfiniBand and high-speed Ethernet to ship ultra-fast, lossless knowledge switch between compute and storage, minimizing coaching occasions and maximizing effectivity. Azure’s community is constructed to assist workloads with distributed GPU swimming pools throughout datacenters and areas utilizing a devoted AI WAN. Distributed GPU clusters are linked to the providers working in Azure areas through a devoted and personal connection that makes use of Azure Non-public Hyperlink and {hardware} based mostly VNet equipment working excessive performant DPUs.
Azure Community providers are designed to assist customers at each stage—from migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud, to modernizing functions with superior providers, to constructing cloud-native and AI-powered options. Whether or not it’s seamless VNet integration, ExpressRoute for personal connectivity, or superior container networking for Kubernetes, Azure gives the instruments and providers to attach, construct, and safe the cloud of tomorrow.
Resilient by default
Resiliency is foundational to Azure Networking’s mission. We proceed to execute on the objective to supply resiliency by default. In persevering with with the pattern of providing zone resilient SKUs of our gateways (ExpressRoute, VPN, and Utility Gateway), the most recent to affix the record is Azure NAT Gateway. At Ignite 2025, we introduced the general public preview of Normal NAT Gateway V2 which gives zone redundant structure for outbound connectivity at no extra price. Zone Redundant NAT gateways robotically distribute visitors to out there zones throughout an outage of a single zone. It additionally helps 100 Gbps of complete throughput and may deal with 10 million packets per second. It’s IPv6 prepared out of the gate and gives visitors insights with circulation logs. Learn the NAT Gateway weblog for extra info.
Pushing the boundaries on safety
We proceed to advance our platform with safety as the highest mission, adhering to the rules of Safe Future Initiatives. Alongside these strains, we’re completely satisfied to announce the next capabilities in preview or GA:
DNS Safety Coverage with Menace Intel: Now typically out there, this characteristic gives sensible safety with steady updates, monitoring, and blocking of recognized malicious domains.
Non-public Hyperlink Direct Join: Now in public preview, this extends Non-public Hyperlink connectivity to any routable non-public IP tackle, supporting disconnected VNets and exterior SaaS suppliers, with enhanced auditing and compliance assist.
JWT Validation in Utility Gateway: Utility Gateway now helps JSON Net Token (JWT) validation in public preview, delivering native JWT validation at Layer 7 for net functions, APIs, and service-to-service (S2S) or machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. This characteristic shifts the token validation course of from backend servers to the Utility Gateway, enhancing efficiency and decreasing complexity. This functionality permits organizations to strengthen safety with out including complexity, providing constant, centralized, secure-by-default Layer 7 controls that enable groups to construct and innovate quicker whereas sustaining a reliable safety posture.​
Pressured tunneling for VWAN Safe Hubs: Pressured Tunnel means that you can configure Azure Digital WAN to examine Web-bound visitors with a safety resolution deployed within the Digital WAN hub and route inspected visitors to a designed subsequent hop as a substitute of on to the Web. Route Web visitors to edge Firewall linked to Digital WAN through the default route learnt from ExpressRoute, VPN or SD-WAN. Route Web visitors to your favourite Community Digital Equipment or SASE resolution deployed in spoke Digital Community linked to Digital WAN.
Offering ubiquitous scale
Scale is of utmost significance to clients trying to high quality tune their AI fashions or low latency inferencing for his or her AI/ML workloads. Enhanced VPN and ExpressRoute connectivity, and scalable non-public endpoints additional strengthen the platform’s reliability and future-readiness.
ExpressRoute 400G: Azure shall be supporting 400G ExpressRoute direct ports in choose areas beginning 2026. Customers can use a number of of those ports to supply multi-terabit throughput through devoted non-public connection to on-premises or distant GPU websites.
Excessive throughput VPN Gateway: We’re saying GA of 3x quicker VPN gateway connectivity with assist for single TCP circulation of 5Gbps and a complete throughput of 20 Gbps with 4 tunnels.
Excessive scale Non-public Hyperlink: We’re additionally growing the overall variety of non-public endpoints allowed in a digital community to 5000 and a complete of 20,000 cross peered VNets.
Superior visitors filtering for storage optimization in Azure Community Watcher: Focused visitors logs assist optimize storage prices, speed up evaluation, and simplify configuration and administration.
Enhancing the expertise of cloud native functions
Elasticity and the power to scale seamlessly are important capabilities Azure clients who deploy containerized apps count on and depend on. AKS is a perfect platform for deploying and managing containerized functions that require excessive availability, scalability, and portability. Azure’s Superior Container Networking Service is natively built-in with AKS and supplied as a managed networking add-on for workloads that require excessive efficiency networking, important safety and pod degree observability.
We’re completely satisfied to announce the product updates beneath on this house:
- eBPF Host Routing in Superior Container Networking Companies for AKS: By embedding routing logic immediately into the Linux kernel, this characteristic reduces latency and will increase throughput for containerized functions.
- Pod CIDR Growth in Azure CNI Overlay for AKS: This new functionality permits customers to broaden current pod CIDR ranges, enhancing scalability and adaptableness for big Kubernetes workloads with out redeploying clusters.
- WAF for Azure Utility Gateway for Containers: Now typically out there, this brings secure-by-design net software firewall capabilities to AKS, making certain operational consistency and seamless coverage administration for containerized workloads.
- Azure Bastion now permits safe, simplified entry to personal AKS clusters, decreasing setup effort and sustaining isolation and offering price financial savings to customers.
These improvements replicate Azure Networking’s dedication to delivering safe, scalable, and future-ready options for each stage of your cloud journey. For a full record of updates, go to the official Azure updates web page.
Get began with Azure Networking
Azure Networking is greater than infrastructure—it’s the catalyst for foundational digital transformation, empowering enterprises to harness the total potential of the cloud and AI. As organizations navigate their cloud journeys, Azure stands prepared to attach, safe, and speed up innovation at each step.
